"So this is where you have been, Hero Dan Sahyeok."
Dan Sahyeok did not turn his head at the voice behind him.
He merely sat perched on the stone wall encircling the pond, watching the carp at play.
An attitude that might well have felt like a wordless order to leave.
Even so, the other party approached with determined pleasantness and spoke again.
"I hope I am not disturbing you."
"You are."
"Pardon?"
"You are disturbing me. That is what I said."
"Ah."
Bewilderment spread across the dark-haired beauty's face like a blot of ink.
"I, well......"
"If you have business, say it. You are a disturbance, yes, but it is not as though I cannot hear you out."
"Understood."
The woman steadied herself and spoke once more.
"My name is Jegal Seoyeon. The patriarch, Gentleman Divine Sword Jegal Unseong, is my father."
"Are you done?"
"N-no."
"Then skip the pleasantries and get to the point."
Pleasantries.
A remark that would have stung the pride of any haughty child of a prestigious martial clan, yet it barely fazed Jegal Seoyeon.
She and her clan were well accustomed to being dismissed.
"Just a few questions, then. The eviction notice that became the talk of the city overnight--did you truly post it, Hero?"
"I did."
"You must have had quite the time writing out hundreds of copies."
"Not particularly."
A conversation that seemed on the verge of dying at every turn.
Jegal Seoyeon hurried to the heart of the matter.
"Is Shaolin Temple behind you, Hero Dan Sahyeok?"
"I do not keep one of those."
"Pardon?"
"A backer. I do not have one."
Dan Sahyeok flicked a pebble into the pond.
"I take it this is about the old monk from Shaolin. I had never seen him before in my life. We met for the first time that day."
"I-I see."
"Are all your questions answered now, young lady of the Jegal Clan?"
"Ah, well......"
"Not that it matters. I would not have answered any more even if you asked."
"Why is that?"
"Something has come up."
"Come up?"
"Something."
Dan Sahyeok brushed off his trousers and rose to his feet with an easy stretch.
"He is not exactly endearing, but I took him on, so I suppose I ought to keep him breathing."
"What?"
Jegal Seoyeon could only parrot questions back.
Dan Sahyeok shot her a look as if to say she was hopeless, then turned his head.
"Instead of wasting your time fixating on petty power plays, you should be thinking about how to pack up and get back to Longzhong."
"H-Hero Dan?"
WHOOSH—!
The moment she registered a savage gust of wind, Dan Sahyeok had already vanished from sight.
"......!"
Jegal Seoyeon whipped her head around in a panic and barely managed to spot a retreating figure in the distance, already over a hundred paces away.
'Wh-what terrifying movement arts......!'
Never in her life had Jegal Seoyeon seen anyone move so fast.
Granted, she had never personally witnessed the so-called peerless masters at their full power, but she had built up no small amount of experience here at Yellow Dragon Fortress.
The renowned masters she had observed in passing.
She had never seen them exert their full abilities, true, but she doubted more than a handful of them could match movement arts of that caliber even if they did.
"But...... where on earth is he going in such a rush?"
***
"Nnngh."
A pain that bored into his very marrow made Jang Ucheol shudder.
His entire body was caked in blood and dust.
His forehead had been split open, the blood streaming into his eyes, and to make matters worse they had bound a rag over them, leaving him unable to see an inch ahead.
Both arms were tightly lashed to a wooden post.
He recalled being ambushed, beaten to a pulp with obvious relish, and then tied up in some unknown place.
There was probably only one reason he was in this state.
Absurdly enough, the reason his captors had kept him alive instead of killing him was likely the same.
"Awake at last? You are as slow as you look."
"Hey now, leave a man's looks out of it."
"Hmph! You have the luxury for wisecracks at a time like this? I cannot tell if you are an optimist or a halfwit."
"If you are going to ask about that Dan Sahyeok fellow......"
The already quiet surroundings fell another shade more silent.
A silence so profound that not even a mouse would dare stir.
Their purpose was painfully transparent.
"I know virtually nothing. I just got unlucky and ended up tangled with the man."
"......"
"So let us both save face and walk away here."
"Walk away?"
"I am saying let us pretend nothing happened here today. Agreed?"
"......"
"I will not bear any grudge or seek revenge against you. I will just chalk it up to stepping in dung. On the other hand, all you need to do is walk away. Being beaten like a dog is my problem, not yours--you are in a much better position, are you not?"
"You dare try to bargain with us?"
Damn martial artists.
Jang Ucheol muttered, but only inside his head.
He was a Martial Alliance member himself, but this was the problem with martial world types.
'All they have to do is agree and leave, but they just have to pick at every little word. Rotten bastards!'
As it was, his skull had been cracked open so thoroughly that every breath sent a searing throb through his head.
His captors, by contrast, had neither been exposed nor suffered any loss, yet here they were carrying on like this.
What truly infuriated him was that they genuinely believed it.
They believed that as members of a prestigious clan or sect, they were inherently above Martial Alliance warriors who were wanderers or hailed from minor sects.
'Even so, there is nothing I can do. Getting out of here alive comes first.'
A martial artist's body was his livelihood.
One wrong injury left to fester could render the rest of his life unspeakably wretched.
Already beaten to a pulp, Jang Ucheol had no desire to make his wounds any worse.
'Nothing for it. I will have to swallow my pride and grovel.'
Just as he steeled himself and opened his mouth--
"Wh-what the--!"
"Who goes there!"
"GYAAAH!"
"AAAAGH!"
A sudden explosion of screams.
Along with them, several streaks of wind swept soundlessly past the bridge of Jang Ucheol's nose.
SPLAT.
Amid it all, a single droplet alighted near his forehead.
From the smell, it was blood.
"Uh......"
The surroundings fell silent in an instant.
A silence incomparably more chilling than before. Jang Ucheol groped for words.
"H-hello? Is anyone there?"
"Yeah."
A voice that had grown somewhat familiar by now.
Never in his wildest dreams had Jang Ucheol imagined he would be this glad to hear it.
"It's you, Dan Sahyeok! Sir!"
SNAP.
The rag over his eyes vanished and the ropes binding his wrists to the post were severed.
Jang Ucheol, his body free once more, threw himself flat on the ground without a second thought.
"Thank you for saving me, sir! You did not abandon this humble brother."
"Are you even old enough to call yourself my brother?"
"What?"
"I said how old are you."
Jang Ucheol lifted his head blankly and studied Dan Sahyeok's expression with care.
This did not seem like a joke.
"Well, I, uh...... I have not yet reached my thirtieth year."
"You are not even thirty with that face?"
"No. In fact...... I am still quite a ways from thirty, to tell the truth."
"For crying out loud."
Dan Sahyeok muttered under his breath.
Jang Ucheol felt vaguely wronged.
At least the man had saved his life, so gratitude outweighed the indignation.
'Wait, no. The fact that he showed up this fast...... does that not mean he used me as bait from the start?'
Yellow Dragon Fortress was full of people who bore a grudge against Dan Sahyeok.
Since they could not touch him directly, ambushing the man who ran his errands was the obvious next step.
There was no way someone of Dan Sahyeok's caliber had not foreseen that.
"Um, sir. By any chance......"
"That is not what happened."
"Huh?"
"You were about to ask if I deliberately used you as bait. I did not."
"......!"
Jang Ucheol's jaw dropped.
"H-how did you know?"
"Because that is what people like you always think."
Caught red-handed, Jang Ucheol gave a violent start.
"I-I am sorry......"
"No need to apologize. In your position, it is a perfectly reasonable thought."
Dan Sahyeok spoke as if it were nothing.
And yet tears suddenly welled in Jang Ucheol's eyes.
"Sir......!"
"You can still move, right? Then go finish the job."
Dan Sahyeok said breezily and turned to leave.
Jang Ucheol was suddenly at a loss.
"Wh-what about these guys?"
"I am leaving them."
"Should we not interrogate them or investigate to find out who is behind this?"
"Too much trouble."
"B-but......!"
"If you want to, go ahead. I will not stop you. But get my errand done first."
With that, Dan Sahyeok left without a backward glance.
Jang Ucheol looked down at the fallen attackers and scrunched his face into a mass of wrinkles.
"Lousy bastards."
Every last one of them was crumpled on the ground with something broken, so he could rummage through them and uncover their identities if he chose.
But he was not sure that digging that deep was wise.
Above all, finishing the job Dan Sahyeok had given him came first.
"Count yourselves lucky, you rotten bastards."
As petty revenge, Jang Ucheol spat on each of their faces before slipping out of the room.
***
Meanwhile, every quarter within Yellow Dragon Fortress was abuzz.
The Martial Alliance was a colossal federation with over a hundred sects and over two hundred clans under its banner.
Of those, more than a hundred maintained branch offices within Yellow Dragon Fortress.
Among the core powers, some were of a scale rivaling a standing army.
The Namgung Clan alone had over thirty permanent residents.
That meant more than thirty people bearing the Namgung name.
When one added the warriors who served the clan, the servants, and the retainers, the number easily surpassed two hundred.
Right now, an uncomfortable tension hung in the air of that very Namgung Clan's quarters.
"Are you really going to just sit and watch, Brother?"
Thousand-Li Sword Hand Namgung Jak, Namgung Un's younger brother and the man who could be called the Namgung Clan's second-in-command, raised his voice.
He was the one who normally resided within Yellow Dragon Fortress in his elder brother's stead--the patriarch who usually stayed in Hefei, Anhui--and managed the clan's day-to-day involvement in Martial Alliance affairs.
Had the patriarch not been summoned to Xi'an following the Alliance Leader's death, it would have been Namgung Jak who presided over the Martial Emperor Hall meeting.
In which case, a bloodbath would have broken out on the spot--of that, Namgung Un had no doubt.
"Look at this scrap of paper he scattered around!"
Namgung Jak waved a sheet of paper, half in tatters from being passed through so many hands.
"He is telling us to clear out! And if we do not want to leave, to come crawling and bow before him! How can we tolerate such an outrage?"
Namgung Un glanced at the paper in his brother's hand, then looked away.
"It does not go that far, Brother."
"Of course it does. It may not be written in so many words, but his intention is plain as day!"
"What appears plain as day can sometimes differ from the truth."
"Brother!"
"More importantly, we do not yet know for certain that Dan Sahyeok actually wrote those notices. They could be the mischief of an outside force."
Namgung Jak's expression turned openly skeptical at Namgung Un's words.
"Surely you do not mean that seriously?"
"Brother."
"Do you still not see how grave the situation is?"
Namgung Jak's voice rose another notch.
"Already, word is going around that you tucked your tail and backed down!"
"......What did you just say."
Namgung Un rounded on his brother, eyes blazing.
Under that razor-edged reaction, even Namgung Jak, who had been working himself into a frenzy, faltered and went silent.